The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, August 19, 1918, Page 8

nesota enemies of the farmers. HIS is the second article under the general title, “Traitors, Spies and the Kept Press,” a series telling seme of the big business conspiracies against the erganized farmers. The first article last week concerned the discovery and expesure of an elaborate espionage system established by League ene- mies, which maintained operators at League headquarters and had branches in several states. The present article gives the interesting and humorous details of another remarkable stunt, which involved a vast publishing plant and the expenditure of almest unbelievable sums by Min- These articles were prompted by the recent exploits of one “Rev.” the League. miss any of them. Maxwell, the most recent Benedict Arnold of the League, who held a minor position in the organization and accepted a large sum of meney to write a book sdgainst President Townley of the League, which was published in installments in the big business press. deal wit} several others who, like Maxwell, were willing for a price to give a preterze of authority to charges made by outside enemies of the League. These renegades enjoyed a brief notoriety in the gang press and were for- gotten, as Maxwell already is being. Finally the series will tell the story of Maxwell himself and his arrangements with the hired press to “expose” If you did not read the first article begin with this, and don’t Future articles in the Leader will Another Farmer Foe Turns Up Its Toes Big Business Backed a Magazine to Fight the League, but No Farmer Would Read It—Now the Richly Furnished Offices Are Bare INE of the biggest balloons of the anti-farmer interests was punc- tured only recently. The ac- count of it reads like a “Get- Rich-Quick Wallingford” story and will be of more than pass- ing interest everywhere, al- though it happened in Minne- sota and concerned only the farmers of that state. The rise and fall of “On the Square,” an anti-farmer magazine that went through two beautifully printed and illustrated issues and then just naturally blew up, ought to teach an important lesson to the big business in- terests that are continually promoting publicity stunts—like that of Maxwell’s—to block the Non- partisan league, but it won’t. However, this story throws light on metheds of the opposition— methods that will continue to be tried in spite of their impossibility. “On the Square’s” short but bril- Hant career proves first of all that all suckers are not farmers, although the politicians have cited the growth and prosperity of the Nonpartisan league as proof to the contrary. There are business-men - suckers! Judging from the way “On the Square” ex- ploited the business men who are fighting the organized farmers, the old saying about “one of them being born every minute” is extremely con- servative. But for every business- man sucker born, there are a half dozen farmers born to “take” him, as “On the Square” demonstrated! MILKED THE- BIG INTERESTS A group of anti-League agitators, including” Tom Parker Junkin, erst- while editor for Jerry Bacon of Grand Forks, and H. M. Van Hoesen, said to be a promoter of publications from Chicago, were brought in by a group of League enemies to carry out the tremendous idea of capitalizing the prejudice among certain business men and certain big business interests in and out of Minnesota. They con- cocted elaborate plans for getting a huge sum of money from these inter- ests to fight the League in Minne- sota, and actually got it! o Backed by capital obtained in this way, two big institutions were estab- lished in St. Paul. One was the Re- liance Publicity service, reference to which has been made from time to time in the Nonpartisan Leader. It was under the management of Junkin. The other was the “On the Square” Publishing company, with which this article deals. “On the Square” was under the management of Van Hoesen. The Reliance Publicity service was not intended to make any money. It was simply established as an agency through which to circulate anti-League publicity. “On the Square,” however, was conceived and established with the idea of making it self-supporting. - The plan was to use the money con- tributed to establish a magazine that would eventually become self-support- ing through subscriptions and adver- tising. It was expected the financial backers would get back the money they advanced to establish the publi- cation, and make up the drain on the slush fund caused by the expenditure of vast sums by the Reliance Publicity service, which was not ‘self-supporting. The promoters banked on twe things. They ex- pected the farmers themselves aetually te pay money to subscribe for the paper, financed and established as it was to oppose their interests, and that the hostility of business men for the League would cause a big advertising patronage for the magazine. In both of these they failed. Farmers refused to subscribe and business men refused in any large numbers to advertise, although some took ads as a contribution to the anti-farmer cause without any hope of getting returns in sales on goods advertised. But to appreciate the gigantic proportions of the promotion the details of organi- zation will have to be told. In the first place, the contributors to the big l THE ROOSTING PLACE OF BIG BIZ l This is the picture of the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce. Every branch of the grain interests that prey on the farmers of the Northwest has an office under its roof. The members of this grain-gambling institution are among the bitterest enemies ‘of the Nonpartisan league—simply because the League’s political program would end their unfair methods. - PAGE EIGHT fund for the establishment of the magazine, whose names were kept secret, advanced cash to the ex- tent of several hundred thousand dollars to enable the publishing of several issues, as a start, without any revenue from advertising and subscriptions. Some $50,000 was spent by the promoters in get- ting up a mailing list of Minnesota farmers. This was done by sending agents into all the counties to collect tax lists, local newspaper subscription lists, rural telephone directory lists, etc. These lists were compiled, revised and compared in the elaborately furnished offices of the promoters in the exclusive Merchants National bank building, St. Paul. As many as 50 clerks were engaged at the St. Paul office for several weeks in getting up the list of Minnesota farmers. The result was a list of 200,000 names, “all in Minnesota and all on rural routes,” according to the pamphlet in four colors gotten out for private cir- culation among advertising agencies and business men. The promoters mailed the first two and only issues of “On the Square” ABSOLUTELY FREE TO THIS LIST OF NAMES. The cost was over $200,000, exclusive of promotion ex- penses and the expense of getting up the list of names. In addition, also at tremendous cost, beautifully gotten up form letters on engraved station- ery, made to look like personal let- ters, were sent to the list of names, and subscriptions to “the farmers’ own magazine” solicited. Then the promoters waited for the expected en- thusiastic response from the farmers. TRIED TO CORRUPT COUNTRY EDITORS If the story ended here it would be good enough. But there are other astonishing details. The magazine was gotten up to “outclass” the Non- partisan Leader in appearance. It was printed on better paper than the usual farm paper and profusely il- lustrated with halftones and cartoons. The covers were in three and four colors and dealt with patriotic sub- jects—one was of Uncle Sam feed- ing the allies with bread produced by the farmers; another of a farmer and soldier shaking hands, and “On the Square,” covered with a flag, giving the act its approval. An elaborate organization was per- fected to promote a plan for separate editions of the magazine for each county in Minnesota, these county editions to contain, among other things, photographs and writeups of thé local boys called to the colors. Every page, by the way, reeked with intensely patriotic matter—the old game of fighting the farmers from under a patriotic disguise. S The county editions of the* maga- zine were to contain local advertis- ing obtained on this plan: The local country paper that was fighting the League was to solicit and obtain ad- -vertising of local merchants for “On . the Square,” AND THE LOCAL PA- PER WAS TO BE REPAID WITH ADS TAKING UP EQUAL SPACE, OBTAINED FOR THE LOCAL PA- PER FROM BIG BUSINESS FIRMS OF' THE EAST. : LR In connection with this huge mush- room scheme a bureau was established